Life in an Alternative Universe

The panel last night was very interesting.The hall was very, very big and quite full.I am guessing 600 people or more, which two large screens with projections of the speaker’s image (or his power points).During my talk, I mostly focused on a couple people in the front row who were squirming and scowling with everything that David Himmelstein and I said.

We must’ve done quite well because the number of people sympathetic to single-payer rose by 400% after the talk — from two to eight.Many people came up to congratulate David (who did an extraordinary job) and me.What I think they meant was that we did not sound like the caricatures that they would expect after having been immersed in Fox TV.

Seemingly thoughtful libertarians would come up and tell me horrendous things that the government is doing.My favorite was that California is imprisoning families for homeschooling because they refuse to submit to state indoctrination.These people seem quite intelligent, but live in an alternative universe in which there ideas go unchallenged.

The next debate will be a bit different since my “partner” will not be someone like David Himmelstein, but someone selected because is a black woman who works in the ghetto in New Orleans.She is also a Republican Party operative in a state.